intr3pid

There are two separate points here. Point 1 is about the use of LIBOR - or any overnight equivalent (take your pick) - in pricing variable rate loans. The part of my post you are quoting is my explanation of why LIBOR is still relevant in CCL's variable-rate loans despite its controversies. Point 2 is the fixed vs variable comparison. How expensive the loan is decided not by an absolute number but by a spread over a reference rate. (So, 10.375% would be a great borrowing rate if the reference rate was 10%.) Why compare a fixed-rate loan with a reference rate plus spread? Because any fixed-rate loan can be swapped into a variable-rate equivalent and vice versa. (CCL itself has done many such swaps.) In fact, a fixed-rate junk bond/LBO deal is done first up as a variable-rate loan since you need to close the deal faster than the lawyers can the agreements with a rate inked in. Swaps are a godsend. Finally, the OIS rate is the correct reference rate to use - but I can't compare it with that on any other piece of CCL debt. It's almost never disclosed by the company. LIBOR is simply a rough proxy.

All of CCL's variable rate debt is priced in LIBOR or EURIBOR (for a EUR loan) with the exception of the most recent GBP loan which was priced in SONIA. UST% is very rarely used in pricing loans due to its sensitivity to non-lending macro/geopolitical/tax factors. You might see it being used for calibration, yes,. It's too early to tell of a general trend post pandemic/Brexit. Doubt many here will be banging the table to buy the stock at $80 purely for a price gain. At $37, the discussion becomes interesting.

I'm sure if you keep trying, you will eventually have a point to make.

Actually, that's precisely how debt investments are priced. Not on Forbes or CC. In capital markets.

Would be "pickers'. The difference between investing and speculating is how much you know about what you are doing.

675 basis points over LIBOR for a secular growth business. Clearly, someone was tempted.

The difference between the cruise line stocks and the speculative kind is a bit more subtle. The cruise lines are a terrific secular growth story. And a 3.5-player oligopoly. A high-quality coat, so to speak. But why was this high-quality coat still unsold? The debt load and inflation would come to mind. And in the last 3-4 months, both concerns have eased up somewhat. So much so that CCL was able to convince lenders to give it more. That said, $60 is in no man's land.

This is actually one of the very practical reasons why to do refundable deposits - particularly when on board. When a new season is released two years out with several consecutive sailings, you don't know yet which dates you can sail. But you want a certain room or category, and there is a risk it might sell out. If you happen to be (or will be) on board, you can get that room or category across several sailings for the refundable $100 per person. A few months or even a year later, you know your dates. Now, you can cancel anything you don't need and convert the refundable to NRD. The difference between the NRD price later and that in the beginning is the premium you are paying to hold that cabin or category. You can compare this premium with the cost of losing $100 per person across several sailings (that you will no longer need) to measure its value to you.

Yup, the library is very well stocked and organized - but is hardly peaceful. It's located in an open area next to the elevators - and also under the curious eyes of those walking the levels above.

This is the best approach. Since air ticketing has gone online, booking your flights directly through the airlines give you the most control. More importantly, long distance discretionary flights should really be booked in a premium class using miles - or in a way that helps your status with the airline. And that's best done direct.

We will be on Eclipse all the way on the other side of the planet. It looks like Starlink is available down under just like it is in the Caribbeans, so X the fingers. https://www.starlink.com/map So, even if the ship is outfitted with it, it may not be available depending on where you are sailing. This will be the case for us in Antartica in January 2024.

So, either they are keeping your Starlink connection alive and adding local network capacity in ports, or they are switching ship's own communications to the local network in ports and freeing up more capacity for you. This is why the speed in ports seems to be 3x-4x that out at sea.

Do you have a sea day on the itinerary? Looks like Beyond was still among the islands an hour ago: https://www.cruisemapper.com/?imo=9838395 Would love to see a good speed when there is nothing much nearby. Our December holiday trip has 7 sea days, and a good Starlink speed might just make the package worth splurging for.

The ships don't use satellite internet when in port. Any local cellphone network is faster and cheaper. The numbers you are seeing are likely the 4G/5G cellphone network speeds.

Has anyone with basic wifi tried using a VPN? Did it change the speed limits the system would impose?

Individual access points are not the bottlenecks. It's Starlink's connection with the ship that is overloaded when you have 4.000 souls trying to stream at the same time. Celebrity charges 2x what RCL does and that affects how many sign up for the service.

The real test would be whether they are able to throttle your VPN under the "surf" plan.

Trans Atlantic one-way fares can sometimes be more expensive these days than roundtrip. Many airlines discourage one-way fares. Try a roundtrip fare and see if you get different prices. The one-way fares will get cheaper closer to flight times once the airline knows how well the flight is selling.

Yup, not everyone's idea of a January vacation is to don a waterproof jacket, parka, liner gloves, and tumble over wet icy terrain to take photos of penguins. It's an expedition trip for a special interest. The "scenic" cruise is for those looking to escape the northern winters. To experience natural eye candy at the edge of the world while still getting entertained, fed, and pampered like they would in the Caribbeans. ps. Awesome pictures - glad you took it for us!

The new AirPods Pro 2nd Gen are, by far, the best I have used.

And "God spelled backwards is dog". This is what? A grade 6 Discord channel? The only guaranteed spring water on board is Evian. Or if they offer Voss or Fiji (RCL doesn't). Everything else - including that from the tap - has no assurances of having not first traveled through miles and miles of decades-old plumbing.

Nope.

Hopefully, we are one step away from seeing the input button directly on the remote. By now, they have probably figured out that opening up access to devices that use the Internet can only help the wifi sales. The reset process isn't through the menus. What you want to do is unplug the network cable from the back of the TV. That's where all the programming is being routed from. This should stop the control overrides. Next, unplug the power cable at the back of the TV, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in. When the TV restarts and doesn't find the network, it will default to its factory controls. You can now use the physical controls on the TV as well as your universal remote control.

Unless a TV's firmware has been manually written over - which will reduce its residual value to zero - every TV can be run like a TV and controlled with a universal remote control - once you have reset it. What you are describing is Celebrity now allowing more TV controls with the in-room remote. Including switching the inputs. That's great, though not necessarily guaranteed across the fleet and in every room.

Haven't sailed on Beyond yet, but on Reflection last month, yes, you could hook up your own devices through the HDMI port. You would have to unplug the ethernet and power cycle the TV first. Several of us carry universal remotes for, well, sanitary reasons and for having a remote that we are used to.